Two tugs nudge a barge away from Ketchikan
The village of Hoonah, viewed from the ferryCopyright 2006 Lydia Hinshaw
PRINCE RUPERT, BC -- Two perfect days on the MV Taku would have provided us with a wealth of photographs of scenery, boats, whales and lighthouses.
We had to settle for two dreary days of fog, rain and low visibility which resulted in a lot of gray rectangles with a tiny dark mark in the middle. I know it's a whale's back, but I wouldn't expect anyone else to believe it.
So we focused on things that would show up better in photos. In Ketchikan, we watched two tugs shoulder a loaded barge away from the docks. Since we've depended on these barges for groceries all summer, we wondered if this one was headed for Skagway.
Nope. It was southbound, which meant it that somewhere on there may be the box we mailed home a week before we left.
An earlier ferry stop was at the village of Hoonah, a dot on the map and a place I was interested in seeing after hearing its curious tuba-solo of a name every morning on the weather reports.
The ferry was a fine experience, but it would have been better if we could have gotten off to explore some of the towns we visited.
Unfortunately, there was usually only half an hour or so when we could be off the boat. And as a rule, the ferry docks aren't conveniently located for sightseeing. In Juneau, for example, the docks are 14 miles from downtown, and, I'm told, a mile and a half from the nearest bus stop. It didn't help that we arrived there around 4 a.m.
It's possible to get off the ferry and hang out until the next one stops in, but that could mean waiting two or three days to continue our trip. Although we are not in a huge hurry to get back to Florida, we still didn't want to take a chance on getting stranded somewhere in case of a ferry breakdown.
We had to settle for two dreary days of fog, rain and low visibility which resulted in a lot of gray rectangles with a tiny dark mark in the middle. I know it's a whale's back, but I wouldn't expect anyone else to believe it.
So we focused on things that would show up better in photos. In Ketchikan, we watched two tugs shoulder a loaded barge away from the docks. Since we've depended on these barges for groceries all summer, we wondered if this one was headed for Skagway.
Nope. It was southbound, which meant it that somewhere on there may be the box we mailed home a week before we left.
An earlier ferry stop was at the village of Hoonah, a dot on the map and a place I was interested in seeing after hearing its curious tuba-solo of a name every morning on the weather reports.
The ferry was a fine experience, but it would have been better if we could have gotten off to explore some of the towns we visited.
Unfortunately, there was usually only half an hour or so when we could be off the boat. And as a rule, the ferry docks aren't conveniently located for sightseeing. In Juneau, for example, the docks are 14 miles from downtown, and, I'm told, a mile and a half from the nearest bus stop. It didn't help that we arrived there around 4 a.m.
It's possible to get off the ferry and hang out until the next one stops in, but that could mean waiting two or three days to continue our trip. Although we are not in a huge hurry to get back to Florida, we still didn't want to take a chance on getting stranded somewhere in case of a ferry breakdown.
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